A love letter to the scientific community

We look forward to your participation in our panel session, “The Role of Mentors in STEM Education,”?scheduled for Thursday, January 26, 2023, at 1:00 PM CT.?Dr. Emile Pitre-Professor Emeritus of Chemistry from the University of Washington, will facilitate this session.?He is one of the top scientists in the world.

Bio of Dr. Emile Pitre

Senior Advisor to the Vice President, Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, University of Washington

As a University of Washington (UW) graduate student in the late 1960’s, Emile Pitre was one of the founding Black Student Union members whose calls for diversity and equity to university leadership led to the establishment of what became the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity (OMA&D). Since then, he has spent four decades with the organization, serving in various roles. Pitre’s dedication to advocacy and educational opportunity for underrepresented minority, first-generation and low-income students at the UW is unparalleled.

The son of a sharecropper, Pitre was born in Louisiana and grew up with seven siblings. He was the first in his family to graduate from high school and received a full-ride scholarship. Pitre received a bachelor’s degree (magna cum laude) from Southern University and master’s degree and Ph.D. in chemistry from the UW, where he was a National Institutes of Health Fellow.

After graduating, Pitre worked as an educational planner, a chemist for the Environmental Protection Agency, and senior analytic chemist for the Ciba-Geigy Corporation (now a subsidiary of Novartis) but ended up rejecting an offer that would have paid $20,000 more to return to the UW in 1982 and serve as the head chemistry instructor with OMA&D’s Instructional Center. Seven years later he was promoted to director. During his tenure, the IC won two University Recognition Awards and more than 11,000 IC students earned UW bachelor’s degrees (many of whom he mentored and served as a role model, especially STEM majors and pre-med, pre-dent pre-Pharm aspirants). Pitre went on to serve as OMA&D assistant and associate vice president for assessment and is currently in a part-time role as senior advisor to the OMA&D vice president.

For over 20 years, Pitre served as an advisor to the UW’s Black Student Union. He also led the production of an award-winning documentary in 2007 that highlighted the BSU’s role in the establishment of OMA&D. In 2008, Emile Pitre and the other founding BSU members were presented the Odegaard Award as a group.

Pitre is a member of Phi Beta Sigma, Inc., and has held various leadership roles within the fraternity. In 2010, he received the Sigma Inspirational Award for dedication of service to education and was selected as the 23rd member of the Western Region Distinguished Service Society (DSS) in 2018. Pitre has been the recipient of several other honors including the UW Professional Staff Organization Award for Excellence and induction into the Northwest African American Museum Elder’s Circle and has three academic scholarships in his name. In May, 2021, Emile Pitre became the 47th recipient of the Charles E. Odegaard Award, regarded as the highest achievement in diversity at the University of Washington. In December 2021, he received the UW Multicultural Alumni Partnership Samuel E. Kelly Distinguished Alumnus Award.

By the time of his retirement in 2014, he was recognized as an “elder statesman” of the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, not only for his knowledge of OMA&D history but also for his dedication to student success throughout his career.

Pitre has long been entrenched in documenting the history of OMA&D and has completed a book on its 50-year history scheduled to drop in late February, 2023. Pitre and his wife love salsa dancing and appear in one video on YouTube. An avid photographer, he is known to photograph several OMA&D and UW events and has served as the official photographer for the UW Graduate School Public Lectures.

In addition to the graduation outcomes mentioned above, more than 200 underrepresented minority (URM)/women tutors who I mentored earned degrees in STEM majors between 1982 and 2002.

Selected post-baccalaureate degree attainment by URM/women mentees

Twenty-four (24) URM/women mentees who were undergraduate STEM degree earners went on to earn Ph.D. degrees in STEM disciplines (three were MD/Ph.D. earners).

Fifty-two (52) URM/women mentees who were undergraduate STEM degree earners went on to earn an MD, ten (8) earned a DDS, and five (6) earned a PharmD.

Twenty-three (23) URM/women mentees who were not undergraduate STEM degree earners also received a Ph.D.

Scholarships and Awards

A summary, not exhaustive, appear below

One UW President’s Medalist (freshman year).

Eight (8) URM/women mentees were UNCF (United Negro College Fund-Merck) Research Scholarship recipients.

Nine (9) URM/women mentees were OMA&D President’s Achievement Award recipients (Top graduating GPA).

Forty-one (41) URM/women mentees were OMA&D Endowed Scholarship recipients.

Ten (10) URM/women mentees were Costco Diversity Scholarship recipients.

Notable Alumni (education)

Selected former URM/women mentees whose current positions appear below will be highlighted in an upcoming book about the 50-year history of the OMA&D.

Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas-Austin; Associate Professor, Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology University of Minnesota; Biomedical Engineering Department Advisory Board Member and Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Arkansas; Associate Professor, Literature, UW-Tacoma; Professor of Psychology, San Diego State; Superintendent, Seattle Public Schools;?Faculty, University of the Philippines and President, Professional Society of Genetic Counselors in Asia &Program Manager, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance; Associate Faculty, Shoreline Community College (WA), where they use a student-centered approach (spanning 25 years) to teach chemistry; the Medical Director, Harborview Pediatrics Clinic and a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UW; Associate Professor and Director of an indigenous institute at Seattle University; Associate Professor and Coordinator, UW-Bothell; and AP Chemistry teacher for over 30 years (who has impacted more than 2,000 students in the Edmonds (WA) School District; and Chemistry/Physics teacher for 10 years at Technology Access Foundation Academy, Kent, WA.